


Oh, the audacity!

by Hashilavalamp



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 18th century is bitchy gays, Historical Hetalia, M/M, as said to a friend: the 19th century is yearning gays, not explicitly romantic oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hashilavalamp/pseuds/Hashilavalamp
Summary: The kingdom of Prussia stands as one of the victors of the Seven Years' War. However all is not well, and a friendly chat between France and Prussia quickly goes awry.
Relationships: France & Prussia (Hetalia), France/Prussia (Hetalia)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Oh, the audacity!

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stay away, I had to write another piece about these two idiots. I didn't think there was an audience, but the lovely feedback encouraged me to write some more! While this is another stand-alone, it could also be read as a prequel to Dialectic ~

“I wonder” Prussia started, clicking his tongue. “I wonder how you aren’t choking on all of this.”

France laughed, irking him. “Has this thought been troubling you lately?”

“Troubling is the word you have chosen” said Prussia, searching for France’s eye. “It is a matter that I have long contemplated, yet have never been given an answer that I could consider satisfactory.”

France didn’t reply for a bit, his eyebrows furrowing but not enough for a crease to form. Then the contemplative expression smoothed out into one of amused curiosity. “Is this a genuine question you wish to ask?”

“It is.”

It was only the two of them in the small salon, seated across from each other. Prussia sat with his back to the large windows, feeling the warmth sneak onto the back of his neck as the sun changed position. He studied his opponent, the little smile that played around the corner of France’s lips as he composed his thoughts. The comment hadn’t been entirely serious, but he’d felt swamped the moment he’d arrived here.

“I am afraid that what I tell you will not satisfy you either” France admitted. He blinked against the light, taking a sip from his coffee. “But what has occurred to me is that I simply do not find any of ‘this’ to be an obstruction. Further, I find that it aids me in my endeavors.”

Resentment stirred inside of Prussia’s gut, like a twinge of nausea. “I understand that it can be an advantage, but it is your comfort with it that is rather peculiar.”

“Would you want me to elaborate?”

“If you so choose.”

“Then if you permit it, I would like to confess that I hold some admiration for your person” France said and set down his cup with a soft clink, oddly nonchalant about it. One could have easily mistaken it for sincerity, but the flinch of surprise from the statement kept Prussia from falling for it. “Or perhaps respect is preferable? Even if our methods differ, your approach has its own advantages.”

“You needn’t speak of it” Prussia interjected.

France paused, as though he didn’t expect anyone would not want to hear his words of praise, strangely innocent in his surprise. “I did speak with sincerity. If I wish to convince you of the merits of that which you despise, it is necessary to acknowledge those of your position. From a perspective such as yours, both of us are shackled in this moment by the scrutiny of courts and social conventions, no? So I invite you to view these restrictions less as chains and rather as threads – tied to one another through every word and gesture we speak. To me these threads are visible quite clearly and the task is to pick and choose which threads to pull, and to consider which other threads will be moved in response. They direct us, but we also direct them. Since we all are subject to the same obstacle, success is determined by one’s skill of prediction and navigation.”

Prussia tilted his head. “And you find enjoyment in this task.”

“Quite so. In a game of chess, the rules don’t serve to frustrate the players, they exist to challenge them.”

A game of chess it is then? For a moment it sounded appealing and profound. For a moment the trappings of gold and conversation were elevated above the mundane, France in their midst moving with ease as all threads crossed in his hands. A red apple crawling with worms inside, its flesh fermenting unseen under the skin.

“Very well” Prussia said in a clipped tone.

“Is it what you were looking for?”

“It is all I could expect.”

France wasn’t smiling now, his eyes scrutinizing. “So what is on your mind now?”

Prussia’s finger curled around the fragile handle of his empty cup. The way France spoke always made him feel like he was digging his fingers in and trying to pry him open. Maybe because on enough occasions it had made him talk, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to give France this much of himself today. “Nothing that would be of interest to you, I’m afraid.”

France relaxed a little in his posture and drank some more. Without words polluting the air, Prussia could hear movements over in another room, even the soft rising and falling of his opponent’s chest.

“What do you think of me?” Prussia asked into the momentary silence.

“You desire an honest answer, yes?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask.”

“Very well” France said in a clipped tone. “When I look at you, I see… a skilled man. I see somebody who has been gifted with the qualities that one requires to make a name for himself. Naturally, with a penchant for military matters. But your judgments are too harsh for you own good and may isolate you yet. …What do you make of that?”

Prussia wasn’t sure if he was imagining the pause before the question, but he decided to repay France for his honesty. The anger boiled in him, but he felt exceptionally calm when he said “I make of it that I detest all of you.”

To his credit, France took it in good humor, with a sigh and an exaggerated expression of disappointment. “Oh.”

Don’t fret. It’s personal, not professional.

France shifted. “I’ve given you an insight into my thoughts. Would it be too much for me to ask in return for an elaboration?”

There was a flash of something genuine in France’s dark eyes. Prussia couldn’t interpret it, but his gaze stuck to it anyway, briefly wondering what it meant before he threw it out. There was not much to elaborate on. He’d told France a long time ago what he thought of the likes of him.  
The bile burned in the back of his throat as he looked at France and the expectancy on his face.

“I have no more words for you” Prussia eventually chose to say.

“Very diplomatic” France acknowledged. “Although it illustrates my criticism.”

“You are incorrect. It is not diplomacy, I merely refuse to answer in full to a man who omits the truth. I’m not so foolish that I would allow myself to be exploited in such a manner.”

The men stared at each other.

France this time caved first, perhaps compelled so by the pressure of hospitality. “You have great potential, it saddens me to see it employed in this manner. Have you prepared a poem for me to read to you? Are there specific words you want to hear from me?”

“Only what I know to be true to be spoken in my absence.”

“And you would know?”

“I know.”

“I think you are a fool who demands verbal punishment for no reason other than to feel slighted” France stated, his feathers lightly ruffled. “But you are a good disruption that I didn’t account for enough. So it has been an interesting century so far, if nothing else.”

Prussia couldn’t help the twitch of his own lips, the sting of insult sweetened by honesty. He wasn’t a masochist, but sometimes it felt like he was one of the few among them who understood that this kind of pain wasn’t one you had to shy away from. So what if it was bitter. He could make this poison his own.   
So he snorted, and he couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit flustered. “The lost war does not perturb you anymore?”

Ah, he wasn’t careful with that wording. The sun on his skin burned, while France leaned into the shadow. “I hope that you can feel secure again these days” France said, “Although if memory serves me right, your victory has been one of the somewhat pyrrhic kind? But at least you scared England half to death. What a scene you made.”

Prussia tapped his foot, teeth grazing the vulnerable inside of his cheek as the heat of embarrassment briefly touched his face. “I only felt it appropriate that I remind him of the alliances he’s made. I didn’t raise my voice at anyone.”

“The servants had to clean your blood off the floor” France pointed out lightly. “A much more effective strategy if one wishes to be remembered. But, you did not raise your voice. You were perfectly pleasant, I will acknowledge this. You just happened to bleed in the parlor.”

“You enjoyed yourself that time too.”

“Perhaps it _did_ please me.” France looked at him, voice taking on a softer sound, the feeling reflected in a glint in France’s eye. His whole posture seemed transformed, if only for this moment, more attentive than he had been all afternoon. “You are quite the audacious man.”

Gilbert’s stomach tied into a knot, thoughts threatening to fall into disarray at the sudden genuine affection in that tone. He felt stupidly flattered and insulted at once, the feelings wrestling with each other. Somehow it was that word that threw into harsh relief exactly what it was that Prussia despised so. His pulse rose and his eyes widened as something in his mind aligned, like he’d just remembered a word that had so long been lingering on the tip of his tongue. He inhaled, and held the breath. 

“I suppose I am” Prussia said.

It started in the fissures of the bones he’d shattered.

“This has been enlightening” Prussia said.

It was taking shape.

“To honor my word, I will share with you then the reason for my discontent.”

France still did not look particularly put off, he only elegantly gestured for him to begin. Prussia averted his eyes, looking into his cup, his own distorted eye staring back. Not out of fear, but because he needed to be certain of this.  
He thought. He thought of this day, this week, of the war. Of the war before that, when they’d fought on the same side.

“That meeting after the war” he began, tapping his fingers softly. “Why do you reckon England reacted the way he did when I showed myself? I have the distinct impression it is because he did not expect me to be in the condition to come and humiliate him. Perhaps he even believed that I would not dare voice my grievances.”

“That seems to me a rather accurate observation” France conceded cheerfully, perhaps a bit impatient. “He is not always the most courteous of people.”

“None of you expected me to be able to succeed, so naturally there would be some discomfort. But it gave you an entertaining spectacle to witness at least, am I correct?”

“Am I being accused?”

“Not of a misdemeanor that would upset you. I have merely observed that there is a curious discrepancy in the way that I am treated” Prussia said, the feeling by now having spread up to his chest. Inside his heart beat like a drum, a slow but heavy rhythm that he could feel from his sternum to the veins on the inside of his wrists. “I have long known that you have little respect for me. That my place among you was precarious as a foreigner. England informed me well of what is thought of me by you and your peers. But you spoke of my potential? What do you know of it? Did you expect it to only go as far as you would permit it? Did you believe that because I haven’t held my crown for long I would defer to your authority?”

Prussia met France’s eye, leaning forward and baring his teeth in a hiss.

“And you have the gall to call me _audacious_!”

That was at the heart of it. Because here sat before him France, carrying himself as though his superiority were already pre-supposed. Preordained, inseparable from his person. He knew the rules, knew his way around them even better. For years Prussia had desired to hear him compliment him, that man who wielded his power so easily, but not like this.

Prussia knew that to this France, that little word right there contained the entire essence of his being, his past, present, future. The word used for usurpers, for those that need to be _put in their place_. So that’s what he was, an aberration – Brandenburg and him remembered the jokes at their expense before their cannon fire had drowned out the voices – a _disruption_. A disruption, ha!

Flushing once more with the realization that he was pushing his luck, Prussia reined himself in before the next words could rush out of him, clenching his jaw. “Of course it would be a convenience to label me as such. Even though all of Europe has its scandals and transgressions, it is I who is judged. My actions are only truly audacious if you are convinced that I am demanding something that I have no legitimate claim to.”

France leaned back ever so slightly. “It is my right to defend myself. You have taken my words and spun them into their opposite with little hesitation. Only a man who holds himself in contempt would hear a compliment and believe that he has been gravely insulted. And it is not abnormal to say that anyone who wages war like you and your beloved majesty do, is in some manner of speaking, rather _audacious_.”

Prussia had called Friedrich that once, too. Now that he thought about it. He had seen that feeble young man throw himself into war and called him that, for the first time seeing him as a king. That’s how he knew what the word meant from an enemy. “Isn’t it more ignorant to believe anything like this could serve as a compliment? They are quite drastic measures, I shall concede. But even if it were to truly differ so much, would it make me any less deserving? You observe that my talents lie with the military, and yet you will gladly withhold your respect when I make use of what God has given me and gawk at me when I object. I have made a name for myself indeed with my gifts. All of Europe has witnessed now what I am capable of and is scrambling to imitate what comes natural to me, and still. To you I am unworthy. To you, I am audacious.”  
Inhale, exhale, keeping his breath steady but time was offset. Reality had honed in on this moment, the details of the room distractingly stark. A lose strand of hair framing France’s face, the golden thread used for this coat, the way the light played on the polished reflection of the table. He couldn’t make a scene. He couldn’t make a scene, not more than he already had. 

“I understand now” France said, blinking. “Although I cannot agree with you. I will be frank with you. Has it in all this time never stood out to you that it is your personality that makes you so intolerable to this world?”

“Ah?”

“So it has not.”

“It has? But that was not the topic at hand. You are free to dislike me to your heart’s content, such animosity means little to me. What I cannot abide by is the readiness with which the European representatives will acknowledge my competence and yet deny me respect, as though nobody could attest to my victories.”

“The answer behind that is quite simple” France stated, now almost hissing. “In this moment, you are testifying to us the reason for why it is that you feel an outsider to these circles. I had invited you here as a guest and you have denied your host any of that respect that you feel entitled to. What is more telling of whether I should entertain you than that?”

A silence followed; Prussia could not help but be taken aback. Across from him, France looked about as unsettled by what had occurred, the blush of his anger still visible even through the powder on his face. Prussia had gotten under his skin after all, against his own expectations. Did the threads do what you expected them to, Monsieur Bonnefoy?

“You invited me to be frank as well.”

“It was out of line. It will be for the best if both of us composed ourselves.”

So that is what they did. Not that it helped much, Prussia had already talked the feelings to the surface, forcing them back down was like swallowing what he had thrown up. They simmered still even minutes later as France finished his cooling coffee. Prussia raised his own cup and quickly attempted to cover up that he had forgotten that he had already finished his.

“I wonder as well” France spoke a bit pointedly, “what compels you. You have not done much to foster friendships on the continent if your opinion of us is of such poor quality. The military can get you far, but not further.”

Before his eye, Prussia once again saw battlefields. He remembered the way bullets had pierced his flesh and lodged themselves painfully in his bones.

“I apologize for my earlier conduct” Prussia admitted. “But I something has occured to me in just this moment that puts me at ease.”

Skin had split open, blood soiled the dark fabric of his uniform, vocal chords shot, the smell of smoke entering through his eyes. His skull cracked in places under enemy fire, Friedrich had been horrified. So had Austria when he had to admit defeat. By the time he’d attended the meeting with England and France that day, Prussia could hardly feel his body from how badly it ached, the hunger indistinguishable from an injury. But he still came as a victor.   
It hadn’t mattered if anyone thought he would win, because he’d known long before them, because he had decided it so.

“Which is?”

“That it might not matter at all anymore whether you respect me, even if it feels harsh. Because I have already gotten this far by trusting in my capabilities, haven’t I? You didn’t respect me when we allied, and neither did England. Perhaps you never will! But you still allied with me because of what I offered.” Prussia turned his head, looking outside from the periphery of his eye. “And now Europe has seen me and what I can do, even if you try to rid yourself of me, even if you mock me and think I won’t notice. Whatever you think of me now, you will never be able to pull your threads again without considering me first.”

“If it doesn’t matter to you, then what was the purpose to this whole spiel?”

“Because it is something that will be of importance to you in future dealings. I’m also not above righting a wrong. Though you are not a priority at this time.”

France seemingly perked up, smelling blood. “Is that so?”

“I can be patient, don’t bother yourself with it. Both my king and I will continue to act at our own discretion, as is our divine right.”

“What if I defeat you in the next war?”

“There’ll be another one, and I’ll crush you then.”

“So it is a battle of attrition?”

“Certainly.”

The tension was slowly ebbing away. How surreal that felt, to have revealed his thoughts to France of all people. How unwise of him, how utterly foolish, for all his posturing he understood just how far had gone and that there would be consequences. It was a regular day outside, nothing had truly changed in the world, but Prussia did feel changed somewhere. Brandenburg would murder him if France talked, which he inevitably would, because why wouldn’t he? Prussia knew _that_ much.

France sighed again. “I once thought that I should like to get to know you.”

“I’m afraid then that you have.”

“There is plenty of time left, perhaps you will change your mind one day.”

Prussia closed his eyes. “As much as the circumstances ever require.”

Had he affected something in France? When Prussia looked, he didn’t look very different from how he had at the start of their conversation. Except a bit disgruntled, perhaps, maybe, he seemed to hold his chin a little less high. 

Eventually, France got up. “Later tonight we wish to play music, will you accompany me on the flute?”

Prussia followed suit without hesitation. “Of course.”


End file.
